Category Archives: Helpful Resources

A BIG THANKS to Jim Hodges!! I asked him to consider giving a free segment from Stories of the Pilgrims for Thanksgiving to our customers and he did even better than that! He’s giving The Thanksgiving Story chapter out of that book to EVERYONE! The link is now up. Click on over, download and listen to this chapter from Stories of the Pilgrims. Play it while you and your children are making your preparations today or tomorrow. Then buy the whole book on mp3CD from Jim.

Don’t forget to order your Freedom & Simplicity™ Thanksgiving Study TODAY! I’m still sending orders out today, so you can get started right away! (ebook download) You can even download a FREE Sampler. It will get you started while you wait for your full ebook.

I also have a few Thanksgiving lapbooking ideas in a post from last week.

And many resource suggestions you can read today and tomorrow – many of them available free online.

AND Thankgiving menu, recipes, and Good for You-Naturally!™ ideas on my ‘from me’ blog this week.

LAST of all, don’t forget our Thanksgiving MEGA-Sale for all your Me and My House Exclusive resources and FREE BONUS items too!

For ThanksLIVING!

I’ve been discussing Learning Maps™ and mind-mapping software with several of you and others for a while now. That is also the section I’m currently working on in my new book (soon to be released, Lord willing). That has sent me to further research. So here’s some info to add to previous posts. (And look for my new book to come out, that will have a complete section on Learning Maps™ – what they are and why and how to use them.)

I believe there are 4 contenders for making good mind-maps on the computer. Gratefully, they are now all available for both Mac and windows computers. All of them will cost you something. But all of them also come with free trial periods (at their home websites.) So you can test them out and even compare them to see which you like best before purchasing. FreeMind seems to be the best free, as in no-cost, mind-mapping software, but it still doesn’t have the features that make mind-mapping the effective learning tool that it is meant to be. So I don’t consider it a contender.

The newest Mind Mapping software is the only one that has incorporated all of the features that make Mind Mapping the powerful learning tool that it is. I’m just getting started with it. So before I tell you more about it, I’ll tell you about the other three – that I know more about.

As previously announced, we are now affiliates of NovaMind, one of our favorite mind-mapping programs we’ve been using. Since I wrote on it a couple weeks ago, I won’t add more right now.

Inspiration, the other program I own and am currently using, can be purchased  through our Amazon affiliate link. You can also download a free trial at Inspiration‘s website. Inspiration was written as educational software, so is more specific to the education market than NovaMind, and a bit easier to use, but doesn’t have as many features.

MindManager, the first mind-mapping software I purchased, MANY years ago, is now available for Mac computers. (It was windows only when I got it, which is why I switched to the other two I use now.) It looks like it has been improved, and even better than when I was using it. I don’t have intentions of repurchasing it, but am working with the free trial now. It also can be purchased through our Amazon affiliate link.  You can also download a free trial of MindManager at their website.

iMindMap is the newest of the four, but developed by the originator of Mind Mapping®. Since I already had 3 mind-mapping programs, I didn’t even notice that Tony Buzan had finally created his own. It works much more like hand-drawn mind maps than any of the others, increasing its effectiveness. As Buzan says, “A Mind Map created by you is far more powerful than one created for you.” I am testing it out now. Do I really want to buy ANOTHER mind mapping program? Ouch.

iMindMap is also the newest we have an affiliate partnership with. Their current offer is if you purchase version 2 before version 3 comes out next month, he’ll give you the top edition of version 3 (of 3 new levels) for free when it comes out. You will pay just over what the lowest new edition will cost. It’s not the cheapest mind-mapping application, but OTOH far cheaper than some of the business software I have that I use far less – and it offers more of what Mind Mapping should be than the others.

Excerpt from our May ’08 Me and My House musings email newsletter:

We love books! So we have bookcases in every room of the house – including the bathrooms! and a “library” room, too!

So, how do I keep track of all these books? Well, when children sneak them off and don’t return them, I have been known to buy duplicates. I see a book, and think, “Hmm, I know that’s been on my to-buy list for several years, but I thought I bought it.” I look on the shelf, where it should be, and it isn’t there, so I buy it again. Only later – usually much later – to have the original show up in some child’s possession. Actually, maybe this is their way of ensuring there is an extra copy of the book for them to take with them when they are grown. Hmm.

My first tactic for keeping track of our books, is having a place for each kind. Yes, there is a method to my madness. Different types of books are in each room, and our library is organized, not by the dewey decimal system, but by my own system. But even if you don’t have as many books or bookcases as I do, grouping them by type will help you organize your books.

But, I have one more invaluable method for helping me keep track of all we have. The not-so-secret answer is a computer database. I used to have a file sheet I made (in Access), but now I have a much easier option – software called Booxter. Booxter is a database for books! Enter the ISBN number and it will look up and fill in all the other information about your books (if you have access to the internet, and if the books have an ISBN. Of course my old books don’t, so I have to enter them by hand.) You just add any other notes you care to make – about the location of the book, where you bought it, price paid, notes, etc. – or nothing at all!

You can also, in Booxter, organize your books into files, for easy browsing through various categories, and of course you can search your list. You can even export your list to your iPod, so you can carry it with you! I haven’t tried that yet, but it will be invaluable when we go to homeschool conventions! [Update: I have and it is.]

Booxter is only for Mac computers. But I just did a google search for “book organizer app” and “book database software” and found several for PC. Give one a free trial and see if it will help you with your book collections.

 

This week I’ve been experimenting with pdf organizers, to see if they are really an improvement to my folder hierarchy system I’ve always used. Out of the 4 options that sounded like most likely candidates, 2 were eliminated early on. iTunes (free and a great app for your music collection) is not a good organizer for a large collection of pdf’s – (that’s not what it was designed for, but I can be used for a small number of pdf’s.). And Papers is geared toward scientific/academic/medical journals – so a little more feature specific than normal home ed needs.

Of the remaining 2 apps, already I am leaning toward Yep. I love the visual lay out. Like it states, it is like iPhoto for your pdf’s. But Yojimbo seems to have more features. You can organize more than just pdf’s – notes, images, bookmarks, web archives, passwords, and serial numbers in Yojimbo. It also has a little tab dock that sits on the edge of your desktop that you can drop files into, so you don’t have to switch back and forth between programs. That is handy. (But Yep automatically adds your new pdf’s so you don’t need that drop feature –  for the pdf’s anyhow.) You are able to color code and flag files if you want. I really like those features too. But I’m not sure they outweigh the icon/preview of Yep. And ….

I don’t like that Yojimbo imports all my pdf files rather than just finds them. It crashed on me the first 2 times I tried to use it. I have a large number of pdf’s and it won’t import them all at once. I’ll have to bring them in a few at a time, which will take a LONG time – and take up more disk space (having 2 copies). Then they will view in Yojimbo, rather than my default Preview. In Yep it automatically searches my computer and finds all pdf files and shows them to me – quick and easy.

In both apps you can add tags, and notes/comments, and create smart folders. In Yojimbo you can also encrypt your files – perhaps helpful if you are putting in passwords and serial numbers. Yojimbo looks and functions much like a cross between Mail and Preview. Yep looks more like iPhoto – but… You can view in list or image mode. You have 2 sidebars, in which you have listed – on the left, changing your view to: 1) all your tages, 2) all your Collections (folders you’ve organized into Smart or regular), 3) all the folders on your user name. On the right: if you have no file selected – total document count, page count, tag count, as well as most popular tags. When you select a file, the right sidebar gives you the info about the file – all the general finder info, tags – you can add these here, name – you can change here, original creation date – you can change, author – you can change, description (same as notes/comments – Add anything you want. This is a handy feature for me in both apps.), location (folder hierarchy), URL – you can add one, and a preview pic.

Yep also has a magnifying loupe. And also when you double click on a file, it enlarges to fill the window, and gives you the options of hand or text tools, print or email, rotate, open with (Preview or other viewer), or  view full screen.

The costs of the apps are within $5, so that isn’t much of a deciding factor. Yojimbo is priced at $5 more, but you can get the educational license if you are a home educators, which makes it $5 less. So we’re talking between $30 and $40 for either program.

You’ll have to decide for yourself. Both are available for a free trial period. So play with both and see if a pdf app might be helpful for organizing all your ebooks and other pdf files.

P.S. Another feature I’m exploring. In Yojimbo I can add “Notes”. I experimented with copying and dropping from Emails I want to save. I am on several home ed elists, which have many helpful tips I like to keep – and organizing by subject, etc. is a great help. In Yep I can do this too, by printing as “Save pdf to Yep”. Then I can tag each and quickly search and find all the emails on a topic. Yojimbo also has a “Save pdf to Yojimbo” feature.

BTW, these are both Mac apps. I got started on this by the recommendation from Michelle Gefflin for My eBook Library (found the link) 🙂 which is for Windows XP and Vista only, but will organize ALL formats of ebooks, and is more feature specific to ebooks – not just pdf’s in general. I’ve haven’t found that in a Mac app yet.